I am trying to design a ethernet network card that will plug into a PCIe slot and have 2 etherenet ports visible to the user that are connected by a unmanaged layer 2 switch.
My architecture thought is to get a PCIe ethernet controller and connect that to a switch, and connect 2 ports of the switch to the output of the card.
Is there a better way to do this that would not involve having both the controller and switch IC? I know I could have a 2 port controller and have a software ethernet bridge, but I don't want to put the load of that on the OS.
Additional Info: I need gigabit speeds, but I don't think that should not have an effect on the architecture.